


Wade

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M, mention of conversion therapy, mention of suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:47:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25392604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Some parts of the past are ugly. When facing them, it's best to take a friend.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Wade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swamp_thing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swamp_thing/gifts).



Klinger knew that whatever it was that they were undertaking, wherever they were going, it was serious. Serious enough that he was back to thinking of Charles as the Major - that distant, unattainable figure who had, from his first days in Korea, tormented him in dreams by extending a hand Klinger hadn’t believed he could ever hold. He smiled. How things changed. It wasn’t legal (Charles didn’t think it ever would be, but Klinger was hopeful), but he wore two rings on his left hand. The first wasn’t a diamond, exactly, but a singular creation of layered stone that matched - as closely as it had been possible to do so - Charles’ equally original eyes. Honoria had been the one to undertake that quest. Jewelers accommodated a great deal of eccentricity, she had found, when the name Winchester was spoken in conjunction with other words like “creative consulting fee” and “continued patronage.” Her efforts had been well rewarded when Klinger displayed that newly adorned hand, unable to keep his happy tears at bay. Hugging her, he’d whispered, “How’d you know?” only to have her, laughing, return, “Y-your et-eternal quest for cloth that color. You didn’t think I, of all p-people wouldn’t know what it was that had in-inspired you?” 

Now, in the dove grey light of early morning, the ring was blank as glass when he tucked his hand into Winchester’s. Charles started at the gesture, confirming that he’d been far away. Klinger didn’t speak, but the way he held on contained a message anyway.  _ Whatever this is, I’m here with you. I’ll be here through it and for after, however you need me.  _

Though they were deep along some wooded road with the tree limbs making a pretty green bower overhead, Winchester walked as if a path existed before his feet, mindless of the dew dampening his pant cuffs and leather shoes. Klinger did not know the names of the sorrels, the toadflax, or the asters he saw, but he took comfort from the idea of pausing to gather their cool petals and shaping them into a woodland crown for the lordly man at his side. Charles, he sensed, would brook no such whimsy this morning; he was moving with purpose, eyes scanning back and forth for a trail. 

Klinger was so intent on watching the Major that he didn’t notice that they’d cleared the forest line until the sun hit his face and left him blinded and blinking for several moments. Charles towed him along, unaware. Klinger parsed the scents on the air: leaf fall, dark earth, cold water. Just ahead were massy piles of stone, then water of such airless darkness that the sun could not pierce its depths. 

Charles led his love to one of the high stone shelves and sat with him there to speak. “When Honoria and I were young, we used to swim at a quarry pond owned by a family friend. They submerged lumber there so that the water would pattern it. It was then made into instruments I believe.”

Klinger knew the man before him could not, in that moment, weather his teasing, so he took his hand and stroked it. “You didn’t bring me here to tell me about wood or rocks, Charles.”

“I did.”

Klinger didn’t understand and showed his puzzlement in the mobile features it so pleased Charles to watch. 

“It is hard to say.”

Klinger stood, then, and came into his arms. He tucked those arms around himself like a shelter. “Take your time.” 

Charles considered a phrase, discarded it before admitting, “I find that I do not know where to begin. I have never told anyone this before. I never even wrote it down.” 

“Then it happened in ‘33 or ‘34 then,” Klinger said. 

“Darling,” Charles was wide-eyed, “it has always been my understanding that your continued references to gypsy magic were in jest. Is there a witch in your family line of whom I have not been told?” 

“Nope.” Klinger was grinning. “But your daybooks are lined up in your office at home. There’s a gap I’ve always wondered about. You woulda been what? Eighteen?”

“A little younger, actually. If you noticed this gap, as you call it, why have you never asked?”

“I don’t pry, Major.”

“Back to that, hmm? I admire your restraint, my pretty Corporal. Presented with a similar mystery concerning you,  _ I _ would have asked.”

Klinger’s laughing eyes said that they both knew that he would have done more. “Yeah, but I’m too much of an open book for mysteries. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“I suppose. Though, as I recall, it took you a great deal of time before you confided in me about the various facets of your identity and their corresponding preferred forms of address. Some I discovered quite by accident.” 

Klinger shivered, remembering. “I really don’t like saying this, Major, but I think you’re trying to distract me. I’m all for letting you have me wherever you want - even this big, uncomfortable rock - but don’t you think you’d better say what you came to say?” He looked into his eyes, trying to give him strength. “For the record, I wasn’t trying to be mysterious, either. I just had to know I could trust you first.”

“I am sorry you ever had cause to doubt.”

“Don’t be. I had fun, ‘fighting’ with you back then, getting under your skin.”

Charles smiled, remembering. “You never won.”

“I did too! Twenty-seven, maybe thirty percent of the time, even. And I ended up in your bed, on top of that.”

“On top of as well as underneath, beside, inside,” 

Klinger placed a hand over his mouth. “Can it, Major. You’re not getting off anywhere until you tell me what this little field trip is all about.”

“Not even on your thigh?” He traced it through the cloth. 

Klinger regretted not bringing his Scarlett O’Hara fan. It was a tempting offer, but the fact that Charles was willing to make it told him how much he feared opening up about whatever this was. “No, Major.”

“Call me that and I can make it an order.”

“Try,” Klinger returned sweetly. “Or better yet, talk to me like you brought me here to do. I’ll listen. I’ll close my eyes if that makes it easier. Come on, Charles. I’ve gotten you to say all kinds of things. I have some of them on tape.” (Stateside, they’d found new and entertaining uses for the Major’s tape recorder.) 

“If I believed in him, my love, I’d believe you could tempt Lucifer. I will tell you. You… you do not know it, but, before you, I courted death in Korea. Hoped for it. Before that, I did as much  _ here _ . Walking alone late at night. Drinking too much. Swimming where I knew riptides danced.” 

Klinger’s fingers were cold on his wrist, holding tight. “Charles?”

“I am frightening you,” Charles realized. “That was not my intention. I swear on everything I am that no such desire now lives in me - or will ever be allowed to blossom again. I want a life with you. I’d not eat oatmeal and salad, else.” 

It was the last that actually convinced Klinger. Charles hated health food of any kind, but he diligently avoided sweets and excess except for on their date nights - whether they went out or stayed in for a slumber party. 

“O-okay.” His voice was shaky. “You’re trying to tell me that something happened or kept happening that made you want to  _ die _ ?”

“Yes. There was another Winchester boy. David. He passed away when we were very young. I tried to take his place. To be the man my father was… or the man he told me he was, anyway. Each time that I failed, I looked for a way out. I did nothing  _ to _ myself, exactly, but I would have done nothing to stop something occurring.” 

Klinger remembered his brief fling with amphetamines, his theft of an ambulance to go up to the front. 

“I hope,” he said through teeth gritted against anger, “that you were planning to haunt me if something happened to you, Charles, because I would have been very pissed off if I had to go the rest of my life without touching you!” 

The image cheered the troubled surgeon a bit. “Only you would dream up debauchery with a spook!” 

Klinger shrugged. “Better than nothing. But you’re talking Korea. What’s that got to do with your missing year?”

“I was still struggling with that missing year when I arrived in Korea. It occurred here.”

_ Wood and stone _ , Klinger remembered. “Before it was just a pond?” Klinger guessed.

Charles smiled then - a cruel smile. “This pond is the pinnacle of many years of buying and selling real estate. A school stood here once. For, oh, well over a hundred years. It looked like any school from that time - deep blue stained glass to remind one how near, and far, was the sea. Climbing ivy on brick and slate. It was called Chillingford.” 

Klinger felt a chill emanating from the man in whose arms he sat; this had been boxed up and put away on a shelf a long time ago. 

“It was, despite its appearance, not a normal school at all, but, rather, a discreet place in the woods where the wayward sons of wealthy men could be fixed.”

Klinger didn’t understand. After Charles explained, he didn’t want to believe. His kisses and his tears fell on his face like droplets of rain. Charles brushed them away. “It was long ago, beautiful. You needn’t cry for me.”

“It hurt you for a long time! How did you think I was gonna react?!?” 

Charles chuckled. “With your signature blend of care and fury. I have no doubt you will try to tuck me in amongst the porcelain tonight for fear of my fragility.”

Klinger felt like smacking him. “Don’t joke about this! Nobody should have had to go through that!” He snuggled tight against him. “Especially not you! You’re too good… you feel too much. You must have been really scared.”

“As scared as you were in Korea, though I wasn’t clever enough to face my fears with frills and flounces. When I saw what you were doing… what you’d  _ been  _ doing, it made me think I might be able to survive on my own terms.” He kissed his neck. “It also caused me to fall for you much too hard and much too fast… but you know about that.”

“I remember a thing or two.” He grew somber then. “Thank you for telling me, Charles.” 

“Thank you for being all that you are that I lived long enough to tell it.”

Klinger shook his head. “You made it because you’re stronger than those awful things, not because of me. So, what happened to the school?” 

“I had it torn down and replaced with this quarry pond. I do not need the revenue from the stone here or the lumber weighted under the water which will become guitars or violins. But I did need to know that no boys would be hurt here ever again. I would close all such places if I could.”

Klinger rested a hand on his chest, fingers outspread over his heart. “Nice work, Major.” He looked at the water. “Want to?”

“What?”

“It’s your pond, right? Let’s take it back from all that ugliness.”

Charles followed, protesting that neither one of them was dressed for swimming. 

“You’ve already been in deep, dark water plenty today,” Klinger told him. “Just take off your shoes and wade around.” 

Shucking his shoes was not, however, enough for the former Corporal who made a nice show of unbuttoning a pretty blouse that looked like laughing snapdragons sewn together, then wriggling out of his jeans. Charles would have egged him on to full nudity, but then he thought better of it. Klinger swimming about in lingerie was not to be missed - and it meant driving home beside a Klinger who was quite bare beneath his clothes. 

So he waded, and watched, old ghosts floating away from him, and as Klinger helped him wash the past away, he fell in love just a little bit more. 

End!


End file.
